Motorola teases augmented reality project with clever pop-up art

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Earlier this year, at Qualcomm’s Uplinq conference, Motorola showed off a teaser of a child-focused augmented reality concept they were working on. Today, it looks like that project is a lot closer to being announced, as Motorola shares a sneak peek with us.

When Motorola SVP Regina Dugan asked a crowd of developers, businessmen, and press when the last time they giggled at their smartphone was, there wasn’t a ton of crowd response (the video is below). Fortunately, that didn’t stop her from explaining what she meant. Motorola has been working on a project that focused on exploring the depths of interactive storytelling from a mobile device.

Imagine a world where you, the user, are the cameraman. Your phone, the camera, is a portal into another world where you could wander around and see everything that is happening. If you choose to, you could explore the story as it unfolded, or you could wander and let the story happen all around you. Putting this creative power in the hands of a child looked like an incredible idea, and apparently Motorola is not far from sharing that adventure with everyone.

Opening the box revealed a tiny red hat and a forest scene, not unlike the one found in the story Dugan shared at Uplinq. Under the trees rested a Moto X that was a little different than others we have used. This one contained an app labeled Windy Day, and allowed us to see what was going on in the world Motorola had created.

It’s an impressive concept, and a testament to the power of Qualcomm’s Adreno 320 chip. The mouse in the video is being rendered in real time using Pixar’s OpenSubDiv using OpenCL and OpenGLES. As you move around, there’s very little stuttering, and the inertial motion feels incredibly smooth as you rotate the phone to see everything that is going on.

Motorola has plans to officially unveil this project next week, with the rest of the details surrounding how it was created and what it can be used for.